When Two Worlds Collide

Please note. I am not making fun of Chinese people. I would NEVER do that. EVER. BUT...

Today was a day when the East and the West clashed. Tina and I went to open a joint bank account. There is one bank,,, and only one branch that will do it in Shenyang so we headed there. The first taxi took us part way then needed to get his taxi fixed so he let us off. Nice guy and he didn't charge us so that was cool. The second guy took us directly to the bank.

We couldn't open one bank account. We each had to open one and then they were both linked to the joint account. Tina's stuff was all easy. All Chinese but when it came to open my account.. all hell broke loose. They couldn't work out how to write my name. Being of Irish decent, my apostrophe caused them all manner of problems. My surname is O'Rourke and they didn't know where the apostrophe was on the keyboard. They pretty much held up the keyboard to the window so I could tell them. I didn't have my glasses but I was pretty sure where it was. Chinese names, like most names, have three parts. Family name and two others. Trouble is.. in Chinese, that's a total of three characters, so the space where they typed in my name, didn't have enough room for my name unless they left out all the spaces so now I have one long name of O'RourkeKevinJames. Mum and dad are turning in their graves.. hehehe In the end, they were wonderful about everything. The people behind us were none to impressed because we took forever, but we walked away with the job done.

We then went to a place called Metro. It is a huge warehouse style wholesalers where people who own shops can go to buy bulk stuff. It is a membership only place for people who own stores but for some reason, they let foreigners join. They have a great selection of imported goods which is a haven for foreigners like myself which includes a very wide selection of alcohol and more importantly WINE. Tonight's dinner of (a very nicely done spag bol if I do say so myself) was accompanied by a lovely Cab Sav from Australia. Chinese wine kinda sucks and it took Tina a little by surprise so she is currently trying to do the dishes sh*tfaced and I am a little bit tipsy and hence a little too wordy.

Oh yeah.. I blipped.. This was a sign outside Metro which kinda made sense (or not) of the day.